Good bugs at the zoo

At Evansville's Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden Amazonia, the good bugs take care of the bad bugs

Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden horticulturist, Misty Minar, puts out ladybugs to help control the aphid population inside Amazonia in Evansville last month. "We don't like to use pesticides, especially around the animals, " said Minar, who explained that for every "bad" bug, there is a corresponding "good" bug to combat it.

Ladybugs are part of Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden's Integrated Pest Management program which tries to control pests in Amazonia by using natural methods. Ladybugs eat soft-bodied insects, including mealybugs and spider mites.

Scales, like this Florida wax scale, are pests that show up on several of the plants inside Amazonia at the Mesker Park Zoo. The zoo releases tiny parasitic wasps to help control the spread of the scales.

This pickle jar, which has beer and bread in it, attracts roaches and snails so that Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden horticulturist, Misty Minar, can track the number, sizes and species of roaches in Amazonia. It also decreases the number of adults roaches. The roaches and snails crawl up the outside of the jar, which is covered in pantyhose to make it easier to climb. Once tempted inside the jar by the beer and bread, the roaches and snails can't climb out because the inside of the jar is lined with Vaseline.

These tubes contain roach egg cases that have been stung by predatory wasps which then deposit their eggs inside the cases. Once the wasp eggs hatch in the roach egg case, they eat the roaches. Then the wasps emerge from the roaches egg case and wander out into Amazonia to find new roach egg cases to attack. This decreases the number of roaches that hatch, decreasing the overall population at the zoo.